I am a designer and developer and content strategist. I use my experience as a magazine art director and web editor to help publishers, marketers, non-profits and self-branded individuals tell their stories in words and images. I follow all of the technologies that relate to the content business and try to identify the opportunities and pitfalls that these technologies pose. At the same time I am immersed in certain sectors through my content practice and am always looking to find connections between the worlds of neurology, economics, entertainment, travel and mobile technology. I live near the appropriately-scaled metropolis of Portland, Maine, and participate in its innovation economy (more stories at liveworkportland.org. A more complete bio and samples of my design work live at wingandko.com.

Android Payback: Apple to Cut Google Out of Stunning New 3D Maps App in iOS6

One of the most immediate effects of Steve Jobs’ legacy on Apple is an animosity towards Google fueled by what Jobs saw as the outright copying of iOS by Android. Big tech companies will always be battling titans, but this is more. This is personal.

Still, the two companies have been bound by the mutual dependence since Google’s services are bundled into iOS. And iMore reports that Google may make four times the ad revenue off of their use in iOS than they do from their own Android platform. Apple wants to change that. Apple has already begun intermediating search queries though Siri, effectively cutting Google out of the valuable identity information associated with those searches. Next up is that other large data components on iOS, maps.

It was widely reported yesterday that Apple will likely announce at its WWDC in June that the new version of the built-in maps app in iOS6 will not be fed by Google maps. Instead, Apple has developed its own, in-house 3-D mapping database, based on the acquisition of three mapping software companies between 2009 and 2011, Placebase, C3 Technologies, and Poly9. The stunning 3D image above is from C3, which, according to the company, uses “previously classified image processing technology… automated software and advanced algorithms… to rapidly assemble extremely precise 3D models, and seamlessly integrate them with traditional 2D maps, satellite images, street level photography and user generated images.” The video below shows a flyover of Oslo using C3′s technology.

So if this report is true, Apple will have a new maps app with much more highly-detailed imagery than Google, collected through military-style reconnaissance without the (ahem) gathering of any personal information. It is a good bet that Apple will finesse the transitions between the different map modes far better than Google’s wonky shift from “map view” to “street view.” What could go wrong? Although Apple now owns the source and can engineer accordingly, the new app likely runs more image data through the pipe, so performance on mobile devices—where it’s most critical—is going to be an issue. Apple may have to build in detection of the processor speed of the requesting iOS device and send a thinner stream to older iPhones than to the new quad-core iPads.

There is obviously an interesting business story here about how Apple and other tech companies are trying to chip away at Google’s dominance of web services. But even more interesting, to me, is the end-user’s story. The bloody competition between Apple and Google is leading Apple to create more innovative user experiences for its customers, and that is a good thing. An operating system is just a container for content, and recreating content is much more difficult than just knocking off its container. By creating a new source for the content of maps on iOS, Apple is making their platform more distinct from Android, as if to say, “You can only copy so much.” Although Apple is always improving user experience, this particular effort might have not happened had Steve Jobs not threatened to go “thermonuclear.”

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I’d like to chime in whether Apple selects from mapquest, telenav, c3 technologies or google maps to provide map data in their app, none of the others has any effect on “making their platform distinct from android”

When asking anyone to draw distinction between Android or iOS, C3 Technologies will not be on the end of anyone’s lips now or in the future. Especially because Google had a two hour event a week before WWDC that showcased it’s even superior 3D maps than the ones Apple was about to showcase. How did Google know what Apple was going to show? Because Apple bought C3. Buying an innovative mapping technology makes you an innovator not. Also, C3 is availble for free on nokia maps, because Apple was forced to honor the previous licensing agreement nokia had with C3. So not only is it not new, not innovative, and not something google is lacking, it’s also free, and available to anyone on the internet, regardless of if they have an iphone, or iOS 6. So is google maps you might point out, but google isn’t trying to say otherwise, and apple is. Not new, not exclusive to apple, not exclusive to iOS devices, and not something Google doesn’t have. In fact I guarantee you googles 3D (and offline!) maps will launch before iOS 6 is out of beta.

I’d like to chime in whether Apple selects from mapquest, telenav, c3 technologies or Google maps to provide map data in their app, no one over the others has any effect on “making their platform distinct from android”

When asking anyone to draw distinction between Android or iOS, C3 Technologies will not be on the end of anyone’s lips now or in the future. Especially because Google had a two hour event a week before WWDC that showcased it’s even superior 3D maps than the ones Apple was about to showcase. How did Google know what Apple was going to show? Because Apple bought C3. Buying an innovative mapping technology makes you an innovator not. Also, C3 is available for free on Nokia maps, because Apple was forced to honor the previous licensing agreement Nokia had with C3. So not only is it not new, not innovative, and not something google is lacking, it’s also free, and available to anyone on the internet, regardless of if they have an iPhone, or iOS 6. So is Google maps you might point out, but Google isn’t trying to say otherwise, and apple is. Not new, not exclusive to apple, not exclusive to iOS devices, and not something Google doesn’t have. In fact I guarantee you Google’s 3D (and offline!) maps will launch before iOS 6 is out of beta.

Android copy iOS. If so, then it was a pretty poor copy that Steve not need worry about. WebOS was closer to iOS in most aspects and that didn’t get it very far, did it?

Android == not a fancy UI, but it gets the job done iOS == Great UI overall, though strangely limited in certain aspects/features WebOS == Nice, intuitive interface with poor marketing and worse hardware platforms Windows phone 7/8 == dunno, though I hear some good things

This is more about Apple’s path to world dominance than Google “copying” anything. I like both companies and like the competition this brings about. …think I’ll just enjoy the fruits of their labors…thank you very much! :-)

Innovation does not necessarily mean that substantially more value has been offered.

Google’s maps are free and can be accessed by devices using many different operating systems on many kinds of hardware, unlike Apple’s.

Read Riley Stika’s comments.

Reality check :

(a) Apple does not have the reach. Beyond the shores of USA, there are very few Apple devices compared to others. AND cost of Apple devices, and closed technology, has ensured that the devices are bought and used by very few people, who have that kind of money.

(b) Failing EU and US economy has further reduced the chances of Apple devices reaching the hands/homes of common folks.

(c) The ‘stunning’ really doesn’t offer substantially greater ‘functionality’ over offerings by Google. Ask any kid, and s/he will tell you many ways to use the Google maps can be used. Apple’s ‘stunning 3D maps’ have very little incremental gain other than plain eye candy.

(d) Knowing Google, and Open Source community, Google Maps will catch up :)

I’ve seen all types of systems on phones over the years and I remember being impressed with Symbian OS 6 first featured on the Nokia N-Gage back in 2003.

But after buying an Apple iPhone for the first time in 2009 (I was late into the Apple scene because of being sceptical) I was very impressed with how the whole device was put together (3GS). I’ve since been shown by Apple that having a powerful tech-toy doesn’t always mean I have to sacrifice style and in-fact has changed what I now look for in a phone.

Google’s android platform is so close to the style of Apple it is quite unreal to think that a company that prides itself on innovation and imagination has to ‘borrow’ a style from the market leader.

As far as Apple and Google getting stroppy with each other: well I don’t agree with commercial spite and Apple needs to get it’s priorities sorted with the few bugs left to sort out as well as a few missing features (the facility to order your pictures comes to mind for example) before it goes off creating new ideas just so they can say “in your face” to Google.

The android platform from what I’ve seen of it seems a little more clunky, has some really annoying traits and as with most free-ware software, is full of bugs, security issues and quality control problems and usually a lack of refined interface models.

I say, at least there isn’t mention of Microsoft as we’d all be in trouble as they can’t even develop a browser that meets certification giving nearly 2 decades to do it in!

Amazing how we continue to come up with such sophisticated technologies which allow terrorists to study their potential targets. It may be a fun app for Americans to go and “check things out and play with” but this app, amazing as it is, seems to me to be just another GIFT we are about to give to terrorists (FOR FREE) in helping them to better find the perfect places to HIT. Adam Phillip Begley Class of 1984.

In the 80′s we were limited by the hardware. In the 90′s we were limited by the hardware but things were changing. In the 2000′s hardware and software became fully integrated end equal. Now we are limited by corporate vision and copyright laws, and out and outright corporate ego’s. It’s not the beginning of the end but it will take longer to reach what technology is capable of which tells me corporate greed and power comes first. We need to over come the manipulators and open up the architectures involved so that real innovation can be achieved and society is not their apple to control.